1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a gas cabinet useful in semiconductor manufacturing operations, and more specifically to a gas cabinet including an integrated effluent scrubber.
2. Description of the Related Art
In semiconductor manufacturing operations, highly efficient gas sources have come into use that are employed in gas cabinets containing the gas source vessels and associated flow circuitry, as well as associated monitoring and control componentry. Such gas sources include the sources described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,518,528 issued May 21, 1996 to Glenn M. Tom, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,027 issued Jul. 18, 2000 to Luping Wang et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 6,101,816 issued Aug. 15, 2000 to Luping Wang et al. These gas sources are commercially available from ATMI, Inc. (Danbury, Conn., USA) under the trademarks SAGE and VAC.
In the use of such gas sources, an exhaust scrubber for treatment of the vent gas from the gas cabinet containing the gas source entails substantial capital equipment and operating costs. The alternative of piping the vent gas from the gas cabinet to the ducting of the house exhaust system of the semiconductor manufacturing facility avoids such expenditures, but the purging of the gas panel flow circuitry incident to changeovers of gas source vessels can cause false alarms by toxic gas monitor alarms that are arranged to detect leakage from gas source vessels and/or gas flow circuitry in the exhaust stream. Thus, neither approach (gas cabinet vent gas scrubber or vent gas piping to the house exhaust system) is satisfactory from an economic and operational perspective.
It would be a significant advance in the art to provide a gas cabinet that avoids such deficiencies.